


the inevitability of it

by lilynete



Category: Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist
Genre: Angst, M/M, yeah sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:13:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28219764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilynete/pseuds/lilynete
Summary: Renzou wishes he could see Yukio’s smile one more time.
Relationships: Okumura Yukio/Shima Renzou
Comments: 16
Kudos: 36
Collections: Ao no Exorcist Secret Santa 2020





	the inevitability of it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SidewaysClarinet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SidewaysClarinet/gifts).



Shima Renzou does not want to die. It wasn’t that he craved immortality,  _ that _ sounded miserable in its own special way. The inevitability of it was a terrifying thought to dwell on, though. Nothing but the terrible unknown laying ahead. He’d much rather live out his life for a while longer.  _ ‘We do not fear death.’ _ Was the hardest part of the Illuminati’s mantra to choke his way through. Because how could he not? Shouldn’t everyone? What the hell was wrong with these people?

When he  _ did _ finally die, though, he always said he was determined to do it in the arms of a beautiful woman. To drift off into an eternal slumber against a warm chest, gazing up into a beautiful face and feeling the stroke of a loving hand through his hair… Yeah, that didn’t sound so bad at all.

Regardless of what ridiculous fantasies cultivated in his head, he hadn’t wanted it to come so soon. He knew he faced the risk of it every day, of course he did. He’d always been more than aware that the moment the Illuminati decided he was no longer useful to them, he was sure to be disposed of. It could have even just as easily been True Cross instead. They didn’t exactly shy around the concept of a good ol’ fashioned execution. Death hung over him at all times, and he had learned to live with that and accept it as a fact, but that didn’t mean he was ready to embrace it, either.

He’s barely aware of himself when he first grabs hold of Yukio’s arm. He’s barely even aware of the chaos around them as the airship rattles and crumbles. All he sees is Yukio hurting, and nothing else matters beyond quelling that. He tugs him back towards the doors of the laboratory, feet moving faster than his brain. He doesn’t know where he aims on going, since they’re floating in the middle of the air god-knows-where on a collapsing ship. There’s nowhere  _ to _ go.

Somewhere among all the chaos and scuffling, someone must notice them trying to make their escape. Through a blur of movement, Renzou finds himself greeted with a sudden burning pain through his center as he tries to get around whatever body is suddenly blocking their path. He looks down, blinking at the hole now torn through his abdomen.  _ Huh. Where’d that come from?  _ He can’t even tell what made it,  _ who _ made it, and he thinks to himself that he doesn’t have time to worry about that right now----he just has to get Yukio out of there before the same happens to him. He moves to take another step, to start running again, but begins plummeting forward instead. Until an arm catches around his waist and pulls him back up, and now Yukio is taking the lead in their escape.

Renzou groans as he feels himself being dragged along down another corridor. It looks the same as the last one, and the same as the one before that. No matter how many times he’s traversed these halls, they all remained completely indistinct. He’d made a habit of getting lost for awhile when he’d first come here, until he finally familiarized himself with each twist and turn well enough to get around. Which was fine before, made it easier to explain away were he to ever get caught snooping around. He isn’t sure if Yukio has any idea where he’s going right now, though. He had no idea if he’d already picked up on how to navigate the identical halls with the short time he’s spent aboard the Dominus Liminis and it doesn’t really matter much either way, honestly. Renzou knows well enough that no matter where they ended up, they weren’t really getting away.

“Hang on.” Yukio’s voice urges him back to his surroundings. He hadn’t even noticed himself beginning to drift away, but  _ god _ , it’s so hard when the pain centered in his gut keeps taking over his senses. He doesn’t want to be here for this, he hates this. He wants to stop feeling.  _ Fuck _ , this is so stupid.  _ He’s  _ so stupid. Yukio’s hand squeezes his, the one thrown across his boyfriend’s shoulders. That and the arm still secured tight around his waist are the only things keeping him standing. His feet drag behind them, even as his slumped form tries its hardest to keep up, to keep going forward.

Yukio eventually finds them a way out to the deck. Renzou isn’t sure how long it takes and he doesn’t remember actually arriving. He just suddenly finds his back touching a cool, hard surface as he’s lowered down gently to the floor. He hisses as the movement causes his wound to twist and stretch, and the sound melts into a whimper of pained fear. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” Yukio’s breath is right up against his ear, speaking softly in a way that feels unfamiliar, but not unnatural. “You’ll be okay. I just need to find some medical supplies, I’ll just be---”

Renzou can sense what’s coming, knows what he’s about to say and what he’s about to do. He also knows how futile it would be, and there’s a look in Yukio’s eye that makes him feel like maybe he already knew it too and simply didn’t think he could forgive himself if he didn’t just  _ try _ . Renzou can’t tell  _ exactly _ how deeply he’s actually been pierced, but he feels as though he’s been run through completely. The green of his Illuminati jacket is becoming overrun by red and the fabric of his undershirt is already stuck tight to his skin. He uses all the strength he can muster to form a vice grip around Yukio’s arm.

“Don’t go.” He wheezes, and he feels liquid bubbling up into his throat. A metallic taste runs over his tongue. “Please?”

He’s not sure what sort of look he’s giving Yukio, but it must be a pretty pathetic one because it works and Yukio stops moving to stand back up. Instead, he settles down so he’s fully seated and pulls Renzou’s head delicately up into his lap. It lolls to the side, Renzou’s nose buried into the crisp white fabric of the uniform he’s been given.

Renzou hates the sight of it on him.

He hates the sight of his exorcist uniform too, if he really thinks about it. He’d look better free of any uniforms at all. Free of all the chains that came in the form of stuffy, emblazoned fabrics. He would much rather rather see him in soft sweaters and loose-fitting t-shirts. (Or maybe in nothing at all----Renzou could almost laugh at the thought of how Yukio would react if he said that much out loud.)

It would be nice if they could’ve been normal people with normal lives, if neither of them had been able to see demons since infanthood and if destiny hadn’t decided to screw with them so malevolently from the start. Renzou likes to imagine sometimes how they could’ve met then. Something like bumping into each other at the supermarket or accidentally swapping phones at a mixer. He wonders if they still would have become so close had they not been cursed into such shitty fates. He likes to think that they would be, because it’s impossible to imagine himself feeling any less than the unfaltering, ardent love towards him that he does now. It’s just wishful thinking, anyways. There’s no use to it now.

“Stay with me.” Yukio sounds a little more frantic, his attempt at staying outwardly calm beginning to slip away.  _ Ah _ , he’d been drifting off again. Well, that was alright… He knew it was coming anyways. There was no way to get help, no way to turn back from this. Even if they managed an escape fast enough to get Renzou some medical attention by some miracle, he knows that they wouldn’t be done with him. The Illuminati’s reach stretched far and wide enough that there was no getting out of it.

If they wanted him dead, he would be dead. The only difference is how quickly that would happen, and how many others would have to suffer the consequences for him.

“‘M...here.” He murmurs anyways, sinking further against Yukio’s lap and forcing himself to look up at his boyfriend. His face is scrunched in pain, and it doesn’t make any sense to Renzou.  _ What’s got him so hurt, huh? I’m the one that’s bleeding out here.  _ He thinks lightheartedly, but he doesn’t have the energy to jest out loud.

Something wet strikes his cheek, like the first stray drop of rain before a downpour, and for a second Renzou wonders if he’d somehow taken a blow to the face that he’d completely missed before too, until he notices the wetness rolling down Yukio’s face, collecting at his chin and dropping down onto Renzou’s again.

“What’s that for?” He tries to tease, a tremoring hand reaching up to swipe a thumb through the trail. It leaves a smudge of red, and Renzou cringes when he realizes that both his hands are covered from laying across his wound. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“I don’t care. Why would I care about something like that?” Yukio sniffles with a shake of his head, nearly laughing at how ridiculous it is, Renzou is bleeding out and yet he’s worried about getting a little splotch of blood on Yukio’s face.  _ Good _ , Renzou thinks when he hears the half-sob, half-chuckling sound that escapes him. If he can still make him laugh now, that’s all he needs.

He wants to see him smile one more time. Not the ones he gave from the front of the classroom or out on a mission, staged and politely. Not the one he’d had earlier as he’d activated the Morinath contract, manic and unsteady. A real smile, like the one he’d given him the first time their lips touched, whispering sweet confessions against each other, hands tangled loosely between them. The ones that only ever swept across his face for a mere instant, when Renzou somehow found just the right thing to say to pull one out.

But god, not like this. He wants to see it, to burn it into his mind as much as he can and drift with the image, but he doesn’t want to see it for the last time like this. Not with tears streaming down his face and one eye covered and seeping blue flames and looking so, so tired and worn and fed up with the world in a way no sixteen year old should have to, but Renzou knows Yukio has spent years familiarizing himself with. So has he.

How he really wants to see it is first thing in the morning, when he cracks his eyes open to the first glare of sunlight and rolls over to snuggle in sleepily against the warm body beside him. He wants to see it through lazy wake-up kisses, through crumbs of burnt toast thirty minutes later because neither of them can cook to save their lives. He wants to see that smile as Yukio kisses him goodbye, and Renzou tells him to have a good day because he knows he’ll see it again when he gets home from work in just a few hours.

He wants to see him smile in a warm field as they spend an afternoon together with a convenience store-supplied picnic for lunch. He wants to see him smile from across a kotatsu, with their ankles wrapped around each other underneath. He wants to see him smile beside him on a couch, illuminated by the glow of whatever dumb movie they decide to put on and laugh at together. He wants to see him smile at an altar. Vowing  _ till death do us part _ and having years of smiles ahead of them from there.

Not like this. Not like this. Renzou is suddenly struck by how badly he doesn’t want to die like this. He still has so much life left to live, so much more he wants to see and do and feel and so much left that he wants to say. Not just to Yukio but to Bon, Koneko, Rin, Izumo, Moriyama. Everyone. Hell, even his family. He’s so aware of it all, even more than he’d ever really been, and it hurts and it’s terrifying.

“Yukio…” He whimpers. Panic is setting it, and the more he panics the heavier he breathes, and the heavier he breathes the more everything hurts and his shirt is getting more and more drenched and the entire world his spinning and fading and his head floats somewhere further and further away from the pain, away from it all---

Yukio squeezes his hand, the same way he had earlier, and just like it had before it pulls him back again. Though he doesn’t feel quite as present this time. There’s red against the stark white of Yukio’s shirt and labcoat now, and some part of Renzou wants to take it as a little victory, even if he knows destroying the Illuminati’s laundry doesn’t really count for much.

“I don’----don’ wanna----.” Yukio is quieting him again, carding his long fingers delicately through Renzou’s hair. A soothing, repetitive motion as he scratches over his scalp and pulls apart strands that have begun to stick together with sweat. It almost feels nice enough to distract him.  _ Almost _ ,  _ almost _ , and if might have really worked if Renzou wasn’t so painfully, viscerally aware of how much he was tipping over the edge of life and death right now. A wet sob leaves him, along with a dribble of blood down his chin which he only notices because Yukio’s hand moves away from his hair for a moment to wipe it away.

Blue flames snake out from beneath the patch over Yukio’s eye, alight with the sound of mocking coos.  _ How adorable, how sweet. How pathetic. _ Renzou doesn’t hear any of them as the world becomes fuzz around him and his vision starts to tunnel and the only sensation he wants to hang onto is the feeling of Yukio’s hands over his own.

“Renzou, Renzou, Renzou.” Yukio leans forward and breathes out his name against him like a prayer, and maybe he is praying for him in a way. His lips brush over his ear, up to his scar and his brow bone and down over his wet eyelids, down further along the bridge of his nose and across his cheekbones. They linger longer on his lips, pressing down a little more firmly than the barely-there trail they’d marked out over the rest of his face.  _ He’s gonna get blood in his mouth. _ Renzou thinks faintly, but he shoves that concern away. Yukio would tell him he didn’t care again, that it was ridiculous to fret about something like that. Besides, he was giving him this one last chance for affection. He was trying to make it easier. He deserves his undivided attention.

“I love you.” He sighs against him, and for a second Renzou is back to the very first time he’d heard those words from his boyfriend. For one blissful, fleeting moment, the pain is gone and they’re back in an emptied hall at the old boy’s dorm, tucked away from everything and everyone else and floating on the sensation of youth’s first love.

“I love you. I’ll always love you.” Renzou whispers back, managing not to slur at least these words. He says it again and again, more times than Yukio had uttered his name. He wants to engrain it on him forever, make sure he remembers this above all else about him long after he was gone.

Shima Renzou loved Okumura Yukio.

He already knows what sort of impression he’ll leave behind on the rest of the world. Shima Renzou was a reckless, no-good spy. Shima Renzou was a traitor, loyal to no one but himself and as untrustworthy as a demon. Shima Renzou was lazy, a degenerate, a pervert, a slob. Shima Renzou was a failure, who couldn’t properly uphold his older brother’s legacy and who died without ever accomplishing anything, not even a useful sacrifice in the end.

But Shima Renzou loved Okumura Yukio. And because that was true, none of the other stuff mattered. He doesn’t care how anyone else sees him when he’s gone, as long as Yukio remembers this fact and carries it with him.

Shima Renzou loved Okumura Yukio.

He loved him. He loved him from the moment they met right up until the bitter end. His heart was swept up in a wild storm of emotion for the past almost-year, and though nothing about this time was easy in the slightest, it was also the happiest he’d ever been in his entire life. More free from his family than he’d ever been before, feeling more like  _ Renzou _ instead of Takezou’s shadow.

“I love you. I love you. I’ll always l----” His words catch on another gurgling bubble coming up from his throat, and he gags and hacks and it still hurts, but a little less now. A little more distantly, like the pain belongs to someone else now.

“Shh, I know. I know.” Yukio assures him with a kiss to his forehead, the hand running through his hair is trembling now. Renzou feels the way it shakes when his palm falls over his cheek even more than he feels the pain that’s growing further and further away.

He knows. Of course he does. He’s always known.

Shima Renzou loved Okumura Yukio, and he’s always known.

It’s the best thing Renzou could ever dream to ask for.

And he does dream----he drifts into memories of his favorite smile, of quiet exchanges and gentle touches. The same kind that still linger even as the rest of the world fades entirely. He drifts into the one thing he can hold onto forever, even when he himself is gone.

Shima Renzou loves Okumura Yukio, and Okumura Yukio loves Shima Renzou. Always, always, always.

**Author's Note:**

> haha merry chrimas


End file.
